{"id":34193,"date":"2023-03-14T16:28:56","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T16:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/?p=34193"},"modified":"2023-03-14T16:30:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T16:30:16","slug":"the-fractured-nature-of-digital-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/the-fractured-nature-of-digital-government\/","title":{"rendered":"The fractured nature of digital government"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We\u2019re facing a crisis in public service delivery. Despite the dedication and hard work of many people, acceleration in the pace, pressures, and priorities for delivering public services has pushed government agencies to the limit. And sometimes beyond. Facing rising demand, tightening budgets, and a volatile environment, both local and central services have struggled to adapt to changes in demand, increased focus on accountability, overcoming staffing shortages, and much more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The scope of the challenge can be seen in Deloitte\u2019s most recent \u201cState of the State<\/a>\u201d report for the UK. Based on a large public survey of over 5,000 people and in-depth interviews with over 50 public sector leaders, the overwhelming sentiment was that the current system is at breaking point and requires significant reform. Many felt that the scale of the challenge for government and public services appears overwhelming. With unsustainable levels of funding and longstanding pressures on their workforces, the report states that public sector leaders urged that bold reform is needed rather than incremental adjustments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Where can we turn for the disruptive changes required to address these concerns? No surprise, perhaps, that many are calling for increased focus on\u00a0digital transformation of services<\/a>\u00a0as the cornerstone of government reform. Hold on. Doesn\u2019t this all sound rather familiar?<\/p>\n

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A journey of a thousand miles<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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The digitization of government services is an area in which I have been thinking, talking, and writing for some time. Three decades ago, as an inexperienced computer scientist with a newly minted PhD, I headed off to the USA to investigate largescale software delivery challenges in the US government at the\u00a0Software Engineering Institute<\/a>, a Federally-funded research and development centre working with a range of government agencies. Through deep engagement in a variety of projects, I was part of some of the most influential early projects in digital technology adoption in the public sector. Consequently, I saw at first hand the opportunities and challenges these technologies brought. Over the next 20 years, I expanded my experiences in largescale digital transformation the public and private sectors working and living in the US, Spain, and the UK.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is now almost 10 years since we captured many ideas from this period in the book, \u201cDigitizing Government<\/a>\u201d. Written with my co-authors\u00a0Jerry Fishenden<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mark Thompson<\/a>, the book explored the history of digital technology adoption in government, highlighted the new wave of digitization that had been driving change in the UK\u2019s government digital service delivery strategy, and called for a more ambitious vision for digital transformation in government based on viewing \u201cgovernment-as-a-platform<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While acknowledging important advances in digital technology adoption to bring government services online and hence more accessible, the basic premise of that decade-old book was to provoke a different kind of conversation about the ambitions for digital government.\u00a0As we said back then<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFar from helping make government more nimble, effective and efficient, the use of technology has often fossilized the past, \u2018freezing\u2019 inefficient processes, hierarchies, services and organisations.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead, our aim was to inspire public sector leaders toward a more far-reaching purpose. We summarized this as a revolution in service delivery:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe true opportunity of \u2018digital\u2019 lies in a fundamental reshaping and improvement of government and our public services.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We characterized this new vision in terms of \u201cgovernment-as-platform<\/a>\u201d in which services would on the one hand be developed efficiently to encourage reuse, sharing, and increased delivery through commoditized commercial solutions to drive value. And on the other hand, open up a more dynamic, adaptable, service-based design approach to ensure priority was placed where it counts: Better outcomes for citizens, businesses, and the wider public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Contemporary and subsequent efforts picked up these themes. There is no doubt that the\u00a0UK Government Digital Service team<\/a>\u00a0led the charge to bring more of a service-oriented perspective to public sector. It has been working across many UK government departments to improve digital capabilities. Furthermore, efforts it championed such as the\u00a0design principles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0services toolkit<\/a> have been hugely influential not just in the UK government, but across the world and in many sectors. There is no doubt that progress toward more digitized government have been made.<\/p>\n

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Into the maelstrom<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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However, looking back, such efforts have only partially been successful. Despite best efforts, over the past 10 years digital technology adoption and upgrade in the public sector has too often been slower than expected, cost more than planned, and delivered substantially less capability than promised to its users. As\u00a0described recently in detail<\/a>\u00a0in National Audit Office (NAO) reports, the past 25 years of government digital projects \u201cshows a consistent pattern of underperformance\u201d that creates a gap in delivery that \u201cwastes taxpayers\u2019 money and delays improvements in public services\u201d. Ouch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How is this underperformance possible? In its review, the NAO paints a broad picture laying the blame not on any one area, but across a combination of causes. While not directly stated in this way, in effect the NAO suggests that digitization of the current practices was pursued rather than acknowledging the wider organizational digital transformation that was required. The NAO report concluded that government departments had mis-calibrated the impact of implementing digital change across 6 key areas:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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